Perichoresis or Peri-crisis: Trinity & Identity
Yesterday, during a day long missions training this woman asked us to look at some objects and see which one most resonated with us right then. As I went up to the table to look, a card caught my eye. At first I thought it was a dance, which seemed like a nice clean sentiment about God. However, as I got closer I realized that it was two people running as they attempted to pass the baton. They were caught in an eternal state of almost connecting. As I saw what was really on the card, twin waves of panic and peace came over me.
When the woman asked what item we had associated with, I spoke up and talked about how I feel like I am in the midst of an important hand off where I am almost there, and yet still running. I talked about how I feel exhausted as I continue to race towards the hand off, but I also feel worried about the details because I feel unaccustomed to the person who I am handing off to. She commented how hard it is to feel out of sync with God. The twin waves of panic and peace were back. It felt so good to have what I felt named, but also scary to actually know what was going on because that meant I had to do something about it.
I currently feel like I have to present myself. I have certain roles that I play in certain scenes. In each scene I am recast into a different version of Hannah: the friend, the leader, the daughter, the employee, the student, the Christian, and the neighbor. Other roles have not yet formed or are unknown to me. Increasingly I am realizing that my world is getting smaller and my roles are going to have to start colliding and intersecting and combining into one role that is the same no matter my context. This makes me feel terrified. I like my separated roles; they are clean cut with clear expectations and rules of interactions. I have the safety of forming new roles without having to worry about how they work in unison with the roles I already inhabit. Losing my roles means I couldn't lean on them any longer to to form my identity, but would have to find the answer to the question "Who am I?"
I am currently reading Miroslav Volf's Exclusion & Embrace. Volf talks extensively about the identity of the God-head. The Trinity is made up of three persons with individual particularities while also sharing one divine essence. Volf mentions that persons have been defined by some theologians simply as relatedness (Volf, pp. 177). He says that this relation is one of "complete self-giving" (Volf, pp. 178) and "mutual indwelling" (Volf, pp. 181). This element of relation was originally called perichoresis, which in the Greek means co-indwelling.
I like to think of perichoresis as a dance. My favorite representation of the Trinity is found in Evan Koons' For the Life of the World: Letter to the Exiles. The Trinity is represented as three little girls dancing in a forest. Suddenly a man, meant to represent Adam, appears and begins to dance. This man is described as reflecting the creative and giving natures of God. This is the imago dei, or image of God that is reflected in His human creation. Because the Trinity love each other and gift themselves to each other, so does man. This is where the Biblical idea of love comes from. The video goes on to show that the man is best reflecting love when he is outward facing and giving this love to others.
So this brings us back to my original question "Who am I?" As a human being, I am created to reflect God. Volf mentions that the many characteristics of God should remind us of the many diverse characteristics of His people. I am created to have particularity and uniqueness in the combination of different strengths and attributes that I have been gifted. This unique pairing of strengths and gifts gives me the ability to assume different social roles. Just as Jesus was fully himself as himself, he was fully himself in relationship to others. I cannot fully know who I am without being me as myself, and being me in relationship. The best way to do that is to know what God says about me and who I am in relation to the one who knows me the best. With God, I don't need to only fill one role or limit myself to only one context, but I also don't have to change myself to fit in with my surroundings. God knows me no matter where I am at and who I am with. Just as the three persons of the God-head dance in co-indwelling, so can all of the parts of me, finding their indwelling in the essence of who I am created to be. I would be living my life as "grace, abundance, [and] gift" (Koons). The "different ways of being" (Work, 2019) would be giving to one another and as a whole, I would be giving myself to others outside of myself. I am created to live as an outward facing gift giver for the world.
So how would one become this outward facing gift giver? In a post last week, I mentioned St. Francis of Assisi's Peace Prayer. This prayer refocuses me outwards, not looking to be loved, but to love, not to be known, but to know. During the training yesterday, I was reflecting on why it was so refreshing to interact with the woman who was training us. I realized it was because she was so full of the Holy Spirit that she couldn't help but overflow in abundance onto all those she came in contact with. I wrote in a journal entry about her:
Jesus, people who are filled with the Spirit in maturity are those who I feel comfortable being excited with and also admitting I'm not okay with. I think that is because of the mutual indwelling & self-giving love that reflects from knowing & being known intimately by the Spirit. God, please teach me to walk in step with you, to know & be known.
So what is it that I am attempting to communicate through this garbled mess of questions, quotes, and metaphors? God is our creator and giver of who we are. It is only through Him that we can know who it is that we are created to be. Who we are and how living that out looks can change over time, but our need for Him to understand who we are doesn't change.
Yesterday our trainer talked to us about the importance of the phrase "be still and know". She reminded us that we can't share who the God is that chooses to dwell within us if we don't take time to "be still and know". It will be my liturgy this week as I look to God for my identity and for my next steps as I seek to allow myself to fall back into sync in the dance together with my Creator.
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